Afghan heroin trade will live on
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The arms the Taleban are buying today are paid for with the lives of young British people buying their drugs on British streets,’ Tony Blair claimed on 2 October. ‘That is another part of their regime that we should seek to destroy.’ What are the facts behind this declaration? According to US State Department figures, Afghanistan’s crop of 3,656 metric tons accounted for 72% of the world’s illicit opium in 2000. Opium poppies cultivated for the medical use of heroin are however legally grown in other parts of the world. At least 90% of the illicit heroin in Britain originated in Afghanistan. Recent Home Office figures suggest that there are 295,000 illegal heroin users in Britain consuming about 30 tons annually with a value of more than £2.3 billion. This represents approximately one-third of the £6.6 billion spent annually on illegal drugs in the United Kingdom. Trafficking US government agencies have been crucial in escalating this supply of heroin to the western world. In 1947 the CIA’s supply of arms and money to Corsican gangs recruited to harass French trade unionists in Marseille docks was the beginning of the ‘French Connection’ which supplied heroin to North America until the early 1970s. Heroin trafficking subsequently developed in areas of SE Asia suffering from weak central governments, endemic warfare and private armies allied to the CIA. More : news.bbc.co.uk |